Arsenal blew Lens away in midweek and being 5-0 up at half-time meant that could relax somewhat in the second half so we didn’t expect too many changes to our best line-up, and so it proved, with only Havertz being replaced by Trossard in the midfield.
But the players must have enjoyed overrunning Lens and it seems they wanted to come blasting out of the box and go on full scale attack, and the tactic certainly worked!
Within ten minutes of the action, there was some incredible passing outside the box between Jesus and Saka and our starboy jinked into the box and Sa had no chance of stopping his shot from close range.
And just two minutes later, Zinchenko made a great run down the wing and after a lovely one-two with Jesus he slotted it to Odegaard on the edge of the box, and bang it was 2-0 to the Gunners.
Arsenal must be looking for another second half stroll i reckon. Ten minutes later and Trossard nearly made it 3 but was blocked by Sa, who immediately went down injured. After some on-pitch treatment Wolves decided to withdraw him for Bentley, who is making his first EPL appearance of the season.
Despite their lead, Arsenal were still going full pelt for another and Wolves had to do some stiff defending, Wolves finally got the ball into the Arsenal area after half an hours play but the fact is that Raya hasn’t had to make a save up to now.
Arsenal still had a wink at a penalty but VAR was wasting it’s time checking, and the Wolves and Arsenal fans both made their opinion on VAR very very clear! And despite 7 minutes added time the half ended with a comfortable 2-0 lead.
I fully expected Arteta to start thinking about resting players and playing with the handbreak on to conserve energy and to be honest the game started looking a bit scrappy, but Arsenal are certainly in no rush to over exert themselves. Arteta waits until the 67th minute before replacing Jesus with Nketiah, and straight away William Saliba gets the first yellow card of the game, which is quite surprising considering this is the PGMOL derby! Maybe they’re not sure who they like the least lol.
Odegaard and Saka combined with 15 mins to go and Saka tried a curler into the top corner but it just went wide, and then Martinelli got replaced by Havertz. While that was happening it looks like we are losing Tomiyasu to injury again, as he goes to ground and calls for a replacement. Ben White is the obvious candidate and joins the pitch quickly.
Wolves are running out of time to make a comeback but do try to step up and put some pressure on, but they can’t find a way through our very solid defence.
Trossard was put through by a lovely little dink from Odegaard but both him and Saka from the bounce back, couldn’t get the ball past Bentley.
The straight down the other end, and a bit of a sloppy ball from Zinchenko ends up with Cunha, who curls a lovely ball past Raya and now we have a nail-biting finish ahead.
After the restart Wolves go all out for the equalizer but Arsenal break away and Nketiah is left one-on-one with the keeper but his nice shot gets stopped by the post. Now we have an end to game with 6 minutes added time to go! Nail-biting stuff!
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Arteta decides to extend play by taking off Saka for Jorginho and Kiwior for Odegaard as Arsenal act to presrve their lead.Wolves get a couple of VAR checks but there is nothing dubious involved. And we setlle in with a 10-man defence to keep them out for the dying minutes and it takes a classy Raya jump for us to get a crucial 3 points and we go 4 points clear in the table..
Phew what an end!
We won. that’s the main thing. very happy. win win win COYG
It’s a win but for the first time win feels like defeat. Game was almost flawless better than that against Lens. Too many clear cut chances created and thoroughly dominated with fluidity, creativity and precision. So that’s the difference in football, two game played with similar quality and one led to 6-0 win and another 2-1 nervy win. Not to be able to score 6 goal is the only drawback of this game. Game was going in such easy mode that I wonder after Havertz substitution Arteta felt asleep as he was not even looking at bench till 75 mins. The ease brought complacency near the end which almost cost us the match. Odegard was on another level today, scored beauty and some of his passes cause dizziness. we can dream on if Arsenal continue to play at this level.
Beautiful team goals in the first half. The next game should be easy for the dominant Arsenal
Yea, 3 points in the bag. Trossard dropped of in second half and even forgot to put on his shooting accuracy today. I think it’s time for Arteta should start using more often likes of Kiwior and Nelson baring unplanned injuries to some regulars.
Yes, Arteta shouldn’t make the squad rotation and fringe players rusty. We’ve seen it happen to Ramsdale
GAI, the very first time you are positive!
I might sound negative, but I always try to make constructive criticisms and suggestions to improve the team
So many positives and I don’t want that to be outweighed by the negatives. First half was excellent and back to our vintage best. Rice sweeps up just about everything, truly a top top player.
Now the obvious negative… I did NOT like how casual some players looked towards the end of the game. Trossard’s levels dropped too much once he was pushed out to the wings and seemed he didn’t want to work as hard as he was earlier in the match. Zinny… how many times can he keep getting away with these moments? It cost us several points last season. And Eddie, not the guy if he cant score such an easy goal. Overall, focus and full commitment for the full 90 is my complaint for this match.
But have to say, our attack for most of this game looked excellent, our CB’s are just amazing, Raya getting more comfortable, and a much needed amazing performance from Odegaard who was everywhere, working hard, picking up the ball from deep and creating chances. Well done, great team performance.
Earlier in the match there were 2-3 moments when Zinko lose the ball and put in danger and he should have been alerted not to carrying on doing that, during the crucial period but complacency got the better of us and brought the nervy end to the game. Making defensive mistakes is being too frequent which have already cost us against Fulham, tottenham, Newcastle and we have to avoid such mistakes if we are to sustain title challenge. Cant blame Nketiah for missing that goal on this occasion, keeper was too close and he did best to put past him but got so unlucky, same for Martinelli hitting the post. Performance wise this was one of the satisfying one though.
Spot on RSH – agree on every point. Not bad for the third game in a week!
Phenomenal first half against a good team. Special mention for Tomi – I can’t comprehend how quickly he has mastered such an attacking role. Agree with your negatives – I guess that’s why Zinny and Trossard rarely get a full 90 minutes. And Nketiah’s lacklustre display again showed how far behind Jesus he is.
Small gripes in a super display.
If you just compare Jesus and Nketiah for missing the goals then I guess Jesus will come on top. Jesus is better all around but he is also not prolific goal scorer. Nketiah might be better finisher, so we can’t judge him on one unlucky miss. If team plays to his strength he has proven to have good eye on goal. So, he is good back up. If we have to go for CF in transfer market then we should look for upgrade on both Jesus and Nketiah.
Zinchenko is a liability anytime after 70 minutes on the pitch. Arteta obviously has forgotten that.
Enjoy.
You see that we lack expérience…..we should have killed the game earlier
@ Pores, but against Lens we didn’t lack experience… Haha, some fans, calm down now…….
You won’t win every game six nil pal….You should therfore out it to bed as earlier as possible
We must score plenty goals when presented with such an easy game. City is ahead on goal difference but we didn’t work to reduce that.
Technically, we’ve reduced it by one.
How on earth, Arteta doesn’t see that Nkrthia is NOT good for Arsenal. We will meowing the league with him- NEVER.
*never win
*never win I mean
Obviously not able to watch but listened to Arsenal Radio on their app. Nigel Winterburn was saying from about 50 minutes that the score line wasn’t sufficient as Wolves were getting more involved and he noticed that later on in the game energy levels from several players dropped off from our side. He wasn’t happy with sloppy play at the back as time passed naming Gabriel
I completely understand other comments about not finishing off the opposition; it seems to be too commonplace.
Both the commentator and NW were incredulous about the time added on over and above the 6 minutes which made it very nervy
The added time could be because we often take a long time with throw ins and corners, but i didn’t think we were so bad today. We did have at least one injury per half (Sa and Tomi) which would have contributed to the time added.
“A long time with throw ins and corners” you say DAVI.
I would say you could grow a beard while waiting for BEN WHITE esp, to throw the ball in. I have long said that all throw ins should be kick ins, since the game is FOOTball
And while we wait ages longer for the IFAB doughnuts who make football laws to see sense and change to kick ins, let us at least have a 6-8 second limit on throw ins time, with those who fail to throw in quickly enough , letting the opponents take it instead. THAT would speed things up.
I agree they need to enforce time limits for throw ins. In truth, we (arsenal) have been taking the mickey this season. Can’t believe we haven’t been sanctioned by the ref (yellow for time wasting or turning the throw to the other side, whichever it is)
I’ve never been a big fan of throw ins either, mainly because they’re so easy to defend, relatively – it’s the reason we have been taking so long recently, as the potential receivers have been dancing around and struggling to find enough space that they could realistically control the ball.
Kick ins could work only if they strongly enforced the time limit, otherwise we’d have teams loading the box half the time (far more often than we see with the delap style throw into the box), which would only slow the game down more.
It could be great as kick ins would often carry the threat of quick passes to runners behind a defence – would make the game better to watch!
In October the poor Tottenham Hot Spunk were so much better than all the rest (they thought). Now they have to beat City at Etihad to save a little self esteem. Or they will stand there seven points behind and with four straight losses.
Congratulations to us, we got 3points that we needed.Though we somehow looked tired in the 2nd half but let’s remember we were in action on Wednesday. Playing after 3days with a team like wolves is not something easy,that’s what the boys knew and finish the business earlier.
We won 2- 1 alright and the 3 points in the match are in the bag for us Arsenal. And which is the most important thing in it.
Nevertheless, Arsenal would had won the match better with more than the 2 goals that they scored to win it. If the Gunners have had good markmanship in their overall shootings to score goals in their numbers in the match.
This is a short coming area in the performance of the team in the Epl this season that I think Arteta SHOULD quickly addressed before it got out of hand.
I couldn’t care less about the number of goals scored,as long as we win.i have to say,I like this version of Arsenal.i remember last season,we were playing exciting ,flowing .football but still ended up losing/drawing games we should have won.we now have a mature, professional team which believes and stick the plan.we now get the job done early and managing games well bar few mistakes.all this allows us to rotate,rest players which in the long run will be very beneficial to us.this team may not be as flashy , entertaining as last season but it’s a team with a plan,which no longer panic.the manager/players know their qualities and weaknesses and play to their strength,nothing wrong with that.this team has matured,grown and know each other very well and I like it.no more tense end of games. I’m going to repeat myself but steady wins the race.as for the Wolves games we could have scored a couple more goals.to be fair they weren’t glaring misses, sitters.lastly,i have high hopes for this season.
Big difference is Si, we went at them from the start, controlled the game and except for the mistake, we won without being really tested.
@Reggie. You’re spitting facts.we went at them from the start,scored the goals and then managed the game.as you also rightly pointed out,we weren’t really tested.it was due more to our mistakes.having said that,Wolves are no walk over teams as seen this season,so credit should be given to our team.what do you think?should we not take too much out of this game?
3 points and move on.
A good performance except for the Zinchenko mistake, that put us out of our stride and the misfiring up front. Jesus continues to disappoint and looks less and less like a striker every game. Rice has to be THE best tackler and intercepter in the prem. Probably only Rodri a better midfielder. What a player. Its a good job he is made of strong stuff. We should have won more easily but controlled 99.9% of the game. Just the error by Zinchenko letting us down.
Think it’s a bit harsh on zinchenko today. It was a lapse in concentration, but we’ve seen similar lapses in most games from several players (admittedly including him, I think), but we’ve been fortunate and gotten away with it before. I suppose it’s more of a general problem then, rather than a zinchenko problem and does need consideration.
It’s a shame because I do think zinchenko has defended pretty well in general this season – he’s actually looked like a LB.
Don’t know what the fuss is all about. It’s been a big week for the Arsenal, getting top spot in the league and now consolidating plus the grand stand performance in Europe. It’s also great to see the free flowing football return. On a negative, Arteta has to learn how to manage the second half better. It’s been a weakness in his game plan since he became manager, where we have at times squandered points unnecessarily. However another three points against Luton will set Arteta’s team up for a big end of year statement.
To be fair,I wouldn’t call Martinelli and Nketiah chances easy or sitters.they both hit the posts.wiukd you??
Nketiah was one v one with the gk, wasn’t rushed, so he had to score really – he’s supposed to be a finisher. He hit the post, so it’s not like he skied it, but he should have finished it and taken the pressure off. Could have been costly on another day.
Having watched EN’s effort on MOTD, I’d agree with you. It was a very good opportunity to score and should have been taken
True that,on another day it could have been costly.
The boys were scintillating in the first 30mins but obviously tiredness took over and so did Wolves. Arsenal just played CL football 48hours ago so it’s understandable to lost focus from physical exhaustion. Gary O’Neill is no fool and he knows this very well. Luckily after conceding, they grouped up and defended resiliently. However, the amount of wasted chances should be taken into coaching by Arteta. Could have been 5-0 before Wolves had a chance.
If Ramsdale after such great performances can be replaced,I think we should replace zinchenko. For all the good he has done going forward,think this is his third mistake this season directly leading to a goal.
Wolves is always a tricky game so good win!
I’m not Zinnys biggest fan and although he had a part to play in conceding it’s harsh to put full blame on him when Rice probably should’ve cleared the ball first time with so many attackers around.
OT…well done Newcastle!
I think the team assembled this year is almost complete…bear in mind Partet and Timber are both out and would both be in the starting XI.
I think Jan will see us finally get an out and out striker. I prefer Toney because I think he will be more comfortable rotating than eg Vlahovic or Osimhen though either of those would greatly improve the ratio of chances taken that we currently squander
Exciting times ahead… lets keep our feet on the ground !